


Dark Laments

by TalkMagically



Series: Murder Boyfriends [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Usage, Discussion Of Murder, For once Lucifer behaves, M/M, serial killer!au, talk of alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 06:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15989414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkMagically/pseuds/TalkMagically
Summary: Michael has hit another obstacle where Alistair Masters is concerned. Lucifer must find a way to pull Michael out of the rut he's settled himself in to.





	Dark Laments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mrs_SimonTam_PHD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_SimonTam_PHD/gifts).



> Congrats to Mrs_SimonTam_PHD! She knows why. :D

The house was silent when Lucifer stepped in. Lights were on all over the place, so he knew Michael was home, but the lack of any kind of noise was unnerving. Lucifer locked the deadbolt behind him and surrendered his things in the front foyer before padding along deeper into the house in socked feet.

Lucifer froze at the doorway into the kitchen. The room was trashed. Shattered dishes were everywhere. The remains of the Devil’s Ivy Michael had been babying lay scattered in bits of leaves, vines, and dirt. Out-of-context, the state of the kitchen would have been cause for concern. Letting out a sigh, Lucifer slowly made his way around the edges of the disaster to the far side of the kitchen. Once he was free from the risk of stepping on glass, Lucifer fetched a large pot out of a cabinet and filled it with water before setting it on the stove. He reached for the broom clipped on the wall next to the back door and started cleaning as the water heated up.

Lucifer let his mind wander as he swept more and more glass and ceramic into piles. Michael had been working for _years_ to convict Alastair Masters. He even went so far as to literally kill Masters’ lawyer. To have all that work get thrown back into his face because Masters’ new lawyer got lucky and found a loophole to exploit? Lucifer was sure Michael’s head was in a dark place at the moment.

Lucifer paused his cleaning only briefly so he could grab a bag of stuffed pasta from the freezer and pour it into the awaiting boiling water. Dinner would have to be a simple one tonight, especially if Lucifer had to bring it to wherever Michael was currently hiding in the house. Though, if the missing bottle of rum from the shelf was anything to go by, Lucifer would guess that Michael was aiming to get sloshed and that was probably why he hadn’t come out from wherever he was. Extra carbs in the form of garlic bread would be a must, then.

Happy that he got what looked like all of the glass and ceramic into Michael’s garbage bin, Lucifer turned off the stove burners and the oven so the food would have time to cool down slightly as he fetched Michael. Lucifer was hoping he could convince Michael to come down to the kitchen to eat and leaving the food here was a good way to help. Michael would loathe to make Lucifer make multiple trips back and forth just for the sake of food.

Lucifer wandered around multiple rooms before he was forced to go upstairs and check Michael’s bedroom. The door was wide open, thankfully, but the room was mostly dark. When Lucifer stepped into the doorway, he had to pause so his eyes could adjust.

“You didn’t have to clean,” Michael said from somewhere in the room. Lucifer squinted and could see Michael’s form on the bed, sitting up against the headboard.

“I know,” Lucifer said. He approached the bed and sat near the foot in case Michael wasn’t in the mood for him to get too close.

“I would have done it,” Michael insisted. He punctuated his words with a few shakes of the bottle of rum that he held by the neck in one hand.

“I know,” Lucifer repeated. Michael wasn’t slurring his words, so he hadn’t drank too much yet. That was a plus. Lucifer wouldn’t have to get a drunk Michael down the stairs in one piece. “Dinner’s ready.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel too hungry at the moment,” Michael said before taking a drink from the bottle of rum.

“You need something. Raphael told me you skipped lunch,” Lucifer argued. He nearly lost his father to the bottom of a bottle when his mother died, and it had been a herculean effort to pull his father back out. Lucifer wasn’t going to watch Michael follow the same path. Alastair Masters was not worth that.

“Raphael?” Michael chuckled darkly. He paused a moment to take another drink. “Not Desk Gremlin?”

Lucifer remained silent and stared at Michael without expression. He had no idea what he could possibly say to Michael that would get the other man out of this rut. However, Raphael had also made it clear that he had no intentions of crossing paths with Michael for the next 48 hours. Lucifer had to figure out something on his own.

“I… I’ve _earned_ the right to do this,” Michael continued.

“You earned the right to do what you did to the kitchen,” Lucifer corrected. “Your liver is an innocent bystander.”

“That son-of-a-bitch is _walking free_ because I couldn’t do my damn job,” Michael ranted.

“No one expected his lawyer to find that loophole, Michael. You just have to try again,” Lucifer pushed. Michael let out a harsh laugh as he reached over and slammed the bottle of rum down onto his side table.

“With what?” Michael asked in a harsh tone as he sat back upright. “Every single time I have new evidence that could bring him down, he either finds a way to get it thrown out or finds a loophole to weasel his way through. I’ve been jumping hurdle after hurdle, Lucifer, but he keeps moving the fucking finish line!”

“Just try, Michael,” Lucifer insisted.

“I don’t think I’m the best person for the job anymore.”

Lucifer frowned. Michael was the best DA they had in a long time, and no one was shy about telling him that. He had the best conviction record out of them all. If Michael couldn’t put Masters away, then no one could.

“Are you really going to let one person do this to you?” Lucifer asked quietly.

“He’s been a thorn in our backside for years. Nothing I have been doing has been working,” Michael said.

“You’ve done better than anyone else,” Lucifer said. “No one else has been able to get Masters into the courtroom as often as you have.”

“Lot of good that has done,” Michael muttered.

Sighing, Lucifer vacated his seat at the foot of the bed and joined Michael in sitting against the headboard. Lucifer kept a few inches between them because Michael still wasn’t making it clear if he wanted Lucifer there or not, but Lucifer considered getting this close an improvement. He didn’t turn his head to make eye contact with Michael, but then again, Lucifer’s next plan of action would have been uncomfortable if he _did_ look Michael in the eye. Lucifer let the silence grow a few moments as he figured out how to phrase what he wanted to say.

“My mother died when I was fifteen. Cancer. One of those quick ones where you don’t even know you have it until you’re literally within weeks of dying,” Lucifer began. He felt Michael go still next to him. “Dad took it well. At first. But just as my mother slowly deteriorated away without anyone, not even her, knowing about it, so was my father. He kept up the ‘strong widower for the sake of the children’ mask for several months before I finally registered that something was wrong. It was a couple weeks after my sixteenth birthday when I realized that my father was circling the drain, and I needed to pull him back out. And all it took for me to see that was him forgetting to pick up Gabriel after school one Thursday. You see, by that point, Dad and Gabriel had a years-long tradition of going out for dinner together after Dad picked Gabriel up from club activities every Thursday. Mom and I would take the chance to make dinner for just the two of us while Dad and Gabriel went out for burgers or hot dogs or whatever they were craving that week. Like clockwork, every Thursday was their designated day.”

“What had happened?” Michael quietly asked when Lucifer let silence grow for more than a couple seconds.

“After Mom had died, I spent my Thursdays at home learning how to cook dishes my mom and I never got around to trying. Thai. Swedish. Ethiopian. You name it. I was in the middle of my first attempt in preparing cornish hens when Gabriel called the house, wondering where Dad was. Turns out, Dad had passed out in the den after too many drinks and I was so focused on my usual habits that I never realized he never left. That’s when I knew that Dad never let himself move on after Mom died. He never tried,” Lucifer explained.

Lucifer let the silence grow again, and Michael didn’t interrupt it this time. The message was clear. Lucifer was going to drag Michael out of whatever dark place he was letting himself fall into, and it wouldn’t matter how much Michael tried to dig his heels in. Lucifer had lived through watching someone try to destroy themselves once. He wasn’t going to do it again.

“Try, Michael,” Lucifer repeated quietly.

“I don’t know if I can, Lucifer. Even if I wanted to, I’m running out of options,” Michael replied. “It’s getting harder and harder to find new evidence that I can use.”

“Then fuck the evidence,” Lucifer spat, turning his head to give Michael a look that made it clear what Lucifer wasn’t saying. It had been a point of contention between the two of them almost since the moment they met. “Stop letting your ego get in the way of dealing with Masters _permanently_.”

Michael went quiet again at Lucifer’s admonishment. Because Lucifer was right. It was Michael’s ego that was the root of his woes right now. His professional pride insisted he beat Masters in the courtroom. Michael wouldn’t be the best if he couldn’t do that. But if Masters couldn’t be stopped the way Michael wanted, then other ways had to be considered.

“Tell Gabriel to start tailing Masters…” Michael said after a few more moments of silence. It was all he had to say. He knew Lucifer and Gabriel would take care of the rest.

“Done,” Lucifer replied. “Now, come on. Dinner is waiting. I made ravioli.”

Lucifer stood up and grabbed Michael’s hand to pull the other man off the bed, as well. Lucifer wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Rum was not a meal, no matter how much Michael tried to argue.


End file.
